Cue sticks are used in sports such as snooker, pool and billiards for striking a cue ball. Cue sticks are long rods comprised of a butt, shaft and tip that can be of various weights, lengths and thicknesses. They can also be formed of numerous different materials, including wood, graphite, carbon fibre or fiberglass. Generally, cue sticks have a uniform taper beginning at the butt and narrowing towards the tip.
Conventionally, cue sticks were formed as a single piece comprising the butt, shaft and tip. More recently, however, modular cue sticks have become popular. A typical modular cue stick is formed of a butt portion and a shaft portion that are coupled together by way of a screw thread. This modularity facilitates not only portability (i.e. allowing the stick to be disassembled and assembled as required), but also provides a certain degree of configurability. For example, a player may carry two or three different butts that each have a different weight and/or shape profile, for use with one or more shaft portions, and vice versa. This allows a player to select a cue stick configuration that suits a particular type of game, a particular type of shot (e.g. a short cue may be used for playing a shot in a confined space, while a longer cue stick may provide more accuracy for a longer shot) or for suiting their game play on any given day (i.e. without needing to buy numerous single piece pool cues for achieving the same variability).
U.S. Pat. No. 1,705,353 discloses a pool cue with a threaded rod that has a weight which can be adjusted to alter the balance of the pool cue. An object of the patent is to provide an improved cue so constructed that all cues may be manufactured of the same initial weight. An adjustable weight is disposed in a body of the cue so that the balance in the cue may be varied at will by adjusting the weight in a direction lengthwise of the cue. The weight of the cue can be determined by the size of the balance weights, thereby reducing the cost of manufacture and obviating the necessity of producing a great variety of cues varying in weights and balances. However, a notable disadvantage with the pool cue proposed by U.S. Pat. No. 1,705,353 is that the location of the weight is unknown, bar from the feel of the cue. When users have one or more favoured balances they need to alternate between these depending on the playing situation. The proposed cue does not allow for these balances to be accurately altered, increasing the time spent determining the exact favoured balance position for the present situation. Further, when striking the ball, the proposed weight would cause vibrations and unwanted effects to occur, decreasing the accuracy of a shot as well as adding unnecessary wears to the cue and loss of confidence by the proposed player.